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A Traveler's Birdseye View
of Israel's Attainments
By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
• TEL AVIV—If you travel by air, you start
from here, at nearby Lydda (Lod) Airport, and
you wind up in this great metropolis. Tel Aviv
alone lends itself to a romantic description of
the rise of a community of a sand dune. Now
there are 500,000 residents in this thriving
city. It is not the preferred city in Israel.
Many people prefer Jerusalem, and a great
many justifiably choose Haifa, the beautiful
port city. But in justice to Tel Aviv this must
be said: Jews had come here to create a new
home for themselves. They did not select estab-
lished communities: they took a desert and
turned it into a flowering oasis in the midst
of ruins and devastation. Now Tel Aviv is the
Paris of the Middle East. Given half a chance,
in a peaceful world, the people who have built
this center will be able to match anyone, any-
where, in creative ability, in commercial skill,
in scientific development.
So little for Tel Aviv. You can proceed
from here to all parts of the land and find any
climate you wish, the representatives of the
most colorful peoples in the world, the con-
trasts in dress, habits, ways of life, religious
practices: You are in the land of contrasts.
In Jerusalem, the day after Yom Kippur,
we suffered the heat of an abnormal hamsin.
A few days later, we nearly froze in Safed.
In Tel Aviv we witnessed a fashion show at
the opening of the new cultural center; a few
days later we witnessed Yemenites on don-
keys; Bedouin on bicycles, Arabs on camels
—and a gazelle crossed our path at the fan-
tastic point where the southernmost city of
Dim.ona soon will rise up as additional evi-
dence that Jews are conquering the desert.
Retracing our steps, let us go to Haifa. Two
boats arrived and 700 immigrants stepped onto
Israeli soil. Let us temporarily forget the warm
sentiments that link these people with their
old-new land. That in itself represents a chap-
ter in the glorious work of redemption, recon-
struction and the "ingathering of the exiles."
It is the cold facts that we are concerned with.
and that we wish to present at this time.
The most impressive fact about the new
arrivals is that the moment they are checked
in they are handed their citizenship. It takes
five years for an immigrant to attain that privi-
lege in the United States—and he has to ac-
quire a basic knowledge of his adopted country
before he is granted that great privilege of
American citizenship. It takes 15 years to at-
tain citizenship in Switzerland. But in Israel
there is an established rule: any Jew who
chooses to become an Israeli can do so momen-
tarily. How else could Prophecy be realized?
In Haifa, at the modern port whose facili-
ties are being expanded by the genius of our
people, the Jewish Agency steps in. Every
newcomer receives enough food for two days,
the permanence of home. Those who choose
to go to relatives and establish themselves are
at liberty to do that. The others get their per-
manent assignments—the beginnings of a new
life.
Israel's government has a place for every
immigrant, a job for every person, a new home,
cattle where their jobs require it—and until
they become established they are not taxed.
You can travel the length and breadth of
the land, and wherever you turn you see the
• long rows of new homes that have been estab-
lished for these new settlers. They Are in the
midst of new farm areas or in the vicinity of
new industrial enterprises.
In the main, this is where the enterprising
Israel government steps in to do a job, with
the aid of Israel Bond investments. The Jewish
Agency does a magnificent job Jransporting
em to their
the immigrants and bringing th'
destinations. That's where our United Jewish
Appeal contributions are so vital. After that,
the investment dollars play so vital a role that
the results literally follow you at every step
of your travels.
A sugar factory at Afuleh, a fertilizer plant
outside of Haifa, the Irgun Steel City, also in
that area—these and scores of projects attest
to ingenuity, to the determined will of a people
to create for themselves and for posterity.
They are attaining their objectives.
• In Jerusalem, there are elements that in-
spire joy over the creativity that is made pos-
sible by Jewish contributions from America.
The expansion of the Hebrew University, which
has been ousted from Mount Scopus, is heart-
ening. A great campus is arising at Jerusalem.
The convoy to Mount Scopus still makes its
periodic trips, exchanging guards under the
supervision of the United Nations. Jack Zuss-
man is the man in charge of the selection of
the guards and of personnel to accompany the
convoys. But in the new area there are being
built imposing structures; laboratories and lec-
ture halls: all necessary facilities for a great
school. There now are 4,000 students at the
Hebrew University-1,500 of them women—as
compared with less than 1,000 10 years ago.
This is genuine growth!
In the hills of Jerusalem the American tree-
planter can see what has been attained with his
Friday, November 8, 1 957—TH E DETROIT JEWISH NEWS-2
Purely Commentary